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How To Find Real Research About ADD and ADHD

Have you ever wondered how to do your own ADD research and find good, reliable resources for ADHD research?

It’s actually easier than you think.

Real ADD Research Studies

A lot of ADD news, or new ADHD research studies come with a lot of hype when reported on by the media. That’s because it takes a flashy headline to get people to click, and flashy, doesn’t always mean accurate. Take the recent study promoted under headlines about people with ADD having smaller brains. That study, kind of, sort of, almost said that, but not really.

To sort through a lot of the fake ADD research and fake ADHD treatments, it helps to go right to the source. Unfortunately, much scientific research is hidden behind paywalls, or only accessible in dense, hard to find, medical and research journals.

That being said, all government funded scientific research (almost all of it, when it comes to ADHD and ADD) is cataloged, with a summary, on various government websites. Most often, you’ll find new ADD research and science on the National Institute of Health (NIH) website, the CDC website, or on the Medline Plus website. Any of these resources catalogs the real research, right from the source.

Unfortunately, the search function on these websites often leaves a lot to be desired. But, Google indexes all of these websites and does a nice job cataloging them. The key is to restrict your research to these sites in order to get a list of “good” ADHD research results.

The SITE Operator

You can go through the steps to setup your own custom Google search, but there is an easier way.

On the regular Google search website, you can add site: to any search to restrict the search to the specified website. For example, if you just wanted to search for ADHD tips on this website, you could do something like this:

adhd tips site:addessories.com

The site:addessories.com part tells Google to only return results from that specific website. So, if you wanted to only see results from the NIH website, you can just type site:nih.gov after your search terms.

Search All Government Websites Together

Unfortunately, not all ADHD data is cross-posted to all of the websites. If you want to know about St John’s Wort for ADD and ADHD, you’ll want to search Medline and NIH. Luckily, it doesn’t take any extra searches to search all of the relevant websites.

Since the .gov domain is actually restricted to government entities, you can get by with using the site operator with “gov” instead of being more specific. (Similarly, you can search only .edu websites by searching for edu with the site operator.)

adhd st johns wort site:gov

Searching like this gives you a normal Google search of terms, but eliminates all the phony ADHD treatment websites, and ADD con-artists, leaving just official government funded research.

You can take it one step further by using the Tools menu on the Google search page to bring up the time parameters and then choose something like “Past year” to only get the most recent ADD news and research.

Managing Your ADHD / ADD

Managing your ADD / ADHD is tricky enough without having to sift through old, disproven, or plain fake ADD news, research and information. So, use the gov searches to get the original documents, even if it is just a summary. That way you know if you are dealing with legitimate data, or just someone who wants to sell you a bunch of ADHD pills that may or may not help treat your ADD.

GABA for ADD Related Depression and Anxiety

Written by ADDer Leave a Comment

As you know, I don’t really write about different ADD medications, or ADHD treatments, on here without either some solid research I can reference, or if I have experienced myself. That being said, I got this information directly from my new doctor, so I thought I would pass it along and then follow up.

GABA ADHD Motivation

I think this article about GABA for ADD related motivation issues would benefit from some backstory.

I’m in my 40s. I had hernia surgery a few years ago, but other than that, I haven’t seen a doctor in 10+ years. I’m not one of those stubborn guys who won’t go to a doctor, I’ve just literally never been sick enough to see one–with the exception of the hernia thing. That being said, I am in my 40s now, and that is the age where things can start silently killing you if you don’t have regular checkups with a doctor. The health insurance I have offers this service where you get kind of a discount that works especially well with a high-deductible insurance plan and an HSA. For someone who hardly ever sees a doctor, this is perfect. To join, you pick a doctor online, and then you go in for a full physical, and from then on, you manage your own healthcare online, even scheduling appointments without having to call anyone!

That’s how I ended up with a new doctor here in Denver.

During the interview part of the exam, I was asked questions as part of a depression screen. I don’t know if this is new or not (it’s been a decade since I did this last), but it was a first for me. Of course, as someone who has been diagnosed as having depression, anxiety and attention deficit disorder, the questions were pretty familiar. By the end, the doctor was worried, so I gave her the run down on the old noodle.

I have the apathy kind of depression. It is fairly frequent, lasts a few days at time, to continuously. I do not feel sad or worthless, and I never have thoughts of hurting myself. If anything, I feel like I deserve more than I get, and I could have it too if my brain would just get out of my way and let me go work hard on all the things that I know could be great. Finally, I mentioned how my biggest problem is being able to start something, whether it is spontaneously, or if it was something I planned and committed to.

I told her that I had done some therapy, and that over the years I had tried numerous prescriptions including Adderall and Vyvanse, but that in the end, they didn’t really seem to make much of a difference in a way that mattered to me. That being said, I have been taking St. Johns Wort, and while it isn’t a booster in any way, I do feel as if it keeps me from hitting the no-motivation dumps as often. (Don’t mistake that from actually giving me energy and motivation, just that it keeps me from feeling like keeping my eyes open is too much effort.)

GABA Doctor Recommended for ADD and Motivation (and Depression)

Right about there is where your average health care professional bails out and figures at least I can keep going, so why bother with the extra effort.

This time, however, the doctor gave me some recommendations.

One was 5-HTP. I’ve tried this before, but not probably regularly enough to get the effect. Just like St. Johns Wort, it can take a while for the effect of 5-HTP to build up in your body and brain enough to actually help improve your serotonin levels. As an added bonus, it is supposed to help you sleep better, and we all know good sleep with ADD can be hard to come by, especially if you are taking ADHD medications that can be stimulating long after the effectiveness wears off.

I’ll keep you posted on the 5-HTP.

But, what I really wanted to focus on is called GABA. I have never heard of this before, and according to the bottle, this isn’t really up my alley. However, the doctor suggested it, particularly as something that might help with motivation

So, let’s jump in.

GABA and ADHD

So, GABA is short for gamma-Aminobutyric acid, which is a form of y-Aminobutric acid. Technically, that makes it an amino acid, but not in the way that people mean amino acid when they talk about nutrition and stuff, so forget about that.

GABA acts as an inhibitor in the brain. At first, this doesn’t really sound promising. In general, a lot of the research is about how GABA helps with anxiety. It is also supposed to help mood (although if you are less anxious, then your mood is probably better), and with PMS, if you might want some help with that as a side benefit.

The way it may work for ADD and motivation is this:

For me, motivation is a difficulty in getting started. It isn’t that I don’t WANT to do something, I just can’t get going. It is hard to explain because it isn’t that I really want to get started but something stops me, so much as when I sit down, I just start doing something else, and I don’t care that I’m doing something else, so much so that I can’t even make myself try to force myself to do something. Basically, I’m playing Candy Crush and fine with it, so that’s that. Trying to snap out of it causes me worry and anxiety mostly out of fear that I can’t and even if I do, I won’t like it.

How do you motivate when you can’t even care enough to try and motivate?

That is where the GABA comes in.

What if, I was feeling a little better (mood) and I had a little less resistance to getting started, then maybe, just maybe, I could find a way to get over the getting started hump before the resistance kicked.

Far fetched?

Maybe, but I’m willing to drop a 10-spot to find out.

As usual, with supplements like these the research is small and inconclusive, but if there is the potential for it to help with both ADD and anxiety and maybe help me be the more productive person I’ve always tried to be, them I’ll give it a shot.

Update: It’s only been 5 days, but so far, I’ve noticed no difference between taking St. Johns Wort on its own after adding in 5-HTP and GABA. I’ll finish the bottles, but so far, this isn’t fluttering my raincoat.

People With ADD Have Smaller Brains!

Written by ADDer 1 Comment

People with ADHD have smaller brains. Well, that’s what one headline said anyway.

As usual, the media has a hard time turning a large, scientific study into a click-inducing headline with much accuracy. I haven’t had a chance to read anything but various media accounts yet, but the study in question actually appears to show that in a large sample size there are differences in brain structures between children (especially) with ADD, versus kids without Attention Deficit Disorder, or if you prefer, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

What does that mean?

Well, for one thing, it does NOT mean that people with ADD have smaller brains.

What it does mean, is that some physical differences in the brain are detectable in large sample sizes.

What does THAT mean?

It means that there likely is a physical cause (or predisposition) of ADD / ADHD. In other words, it is not just all in your head, although we already knew that. It looks like there may be some connection between ADD and actual brain structure rather than just brain chemistry, and that is interesting.

That big sample sizes thing is not a throwaway, it’s important.

Researchers stated that they could NOT detect a difference in size among individuals, or even among small sample sets. It’s only when you take a LOT of brain scans of people with ADD and statistically average them out (more or less) that you can compare that number to a LOT of brain scans of people without ADD and certain sections in the brain appear smaller overall.

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What does THAT mean!

Well, that means that brain size is not a good way to diagnose or detect ADD because it won’t vary enough from normal for any one individual. It does however, mean that more study would be useful to see what else, if anything differs in an ADHD brain.

One other interesting feature of the study is that most of these size differences go away with age. In other words, a lot of kids out grow ADHD, which has also been known. However, what makes this interesting is the idea that it is simply a later brain growth that triggers ADD. Think of it like how different kids hit puberty at different ages.

Unfortunately, unlike being a “late bloomer” means being smaller for an extra year or two, this requires several years to catch up.

I’ll read the actual study when I can, and get back with some more details, but in the meantime, you can check out news about it online if you are interested.

Boost Your ADD Mood By Moving

Written by ADDer 1 Comment

You have ADD. That’s tricky enough as it is, but ADHD often goes along with depression, or low mood.

It makes sense when you think about it. Unbalanced neurotransmitters are the root of both issues. However, not every slow, sluggish day is a result of off-kilter brain chemistry.

Moving to Boost Mood

One of the traps to avoid when you have ADD is the tendency to blame everything on your ADHD condition. Sometimes, the issue is just good old human imperfection.

For those days when you seem to be a little sluggish, or you just can’t get your brain into gear, and another cup of coffee isn’t helping, try moving around. Physically using your body switches up tons of systems in your body from rest to active. Doing so has a ripple effect on your body that can, and often does, include your brain functions.

Now, I know what you are thinking. This isn’t new news, and you know that exercise and diet can help your ADHD, because, by now, you’ve figured out that better diet and exercise helps literally everything. But, the key thing here, is how little movement is necessary for potential improvement. Sure, a 40 minute run would be great, but that may not be what is required.

Small amounts of movement can make a huge difference, especially if you have been sitting for a long period of time, or first thing in the morning when you haven’t moved much at all yet for the day. Try loading the dishwasher, or running something upstairs. The key is not so much the intensity of the activity, but the length.

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Stand up, walk down the hall, pour a cup of coffee, then walk back to your desk and sit down, and likely nothing has changed. The body takes a wait and see approach to kicking in extra systems as a way of saving energy. No since increasing energy use if this is just a quick blip.

That’s why a 15 minute chore, or other activity works, while a quick break doesn’t. You have to do something long enough to engage the body. Stay standing, and hopefully moving, for 10 minutes. Heck, sometimes, just 5 will do it. Just make sure it is longer than that quick standup and sit back down that doesn’t seem to be working.